Volume I Part 19 (1/2)
Mr. Calhoun visited Hasbeiya in February, 1846, accompanied by Tanns, and was there eighteen days. The congregations were smaller, but made up mainly of those who sought to know the way of life; while their townsmen, softened by last year's war, were not disposed to persecute, as before. Mr. Whiting, Mr. Hurter, and Butrus were there in June. The spirit of the congregation is thus described by the missionary. ”They like to hear a good long exposition, and then to stay and hear and converse, after prayer, as long as we are able to sit up. Some are coming in during the day at all hours, so that we scarcely cease teaching and preaching from morning until bed-time.” Some of the declared Protestants, and even some new inquirers, took a bold stand under persecution by the Governor; and many, who did not venture to call upon the missionary, were in an inquiring state of mind.
Mr. Laurie's health suffered at Mosul, and also in Syria, so that he was obliged to return home in the autumn of this year, and to relinquish the idea of resuming the foreign service. His subsequent labors through the press, have endeared him to a large number of the friends of missions.1
1 See his works: ”_Dr. Grant and the Mountain Nestorians_.” Boston, 1853; and ”_Woman and her Saviour in Persia_.” Boston, 1865.
The year 1847 opened with an earnest and eloquent appeal from the missionaries for an increase to their number.1 And there is nothing more painful in the retrospect of this mission, than the numerous and often unexpected and surprising openings for usefulness, that were so often effectually closed, solely, as it would seem, because there were not missionaries to enter and take possession. There is s.p.a.ce for only a single extract from this appeal. Addressing the Prudential Committee, they say:
1 See _Missionary Herald_, 1847, pp. 185-193.
”We tell you, with all earnestness, that there is great danger, that the work may languish almost to lifelessness, even at the two posts which you now occupy in Syria, before your new messengers can be found, cross the ocean, and pa.s.s through the primary process indispensable to fit them to prophesy upon the slain. Yes, we must make you understand with unmistakable explicitness, that unless you hasten the work, and quicken the flight of those who have the everlasting gospel to preach, the voice may cease to sound, even in the valleys and over the goodly hills of Lebanon! Your infant seminary for training native preachers may droop, or disband; your congregations on the mountains, and on the plain, may be left without any one to break to them the bread of life; and your press may cease to drop those leaves, which are for the healing of the nations. All this may, yes, must occur, by a necessity as inexorable as the decree that commands all back to dust, unless you hasten to renew the vitality of our mission, by throwing into it the young life of a new generation of laborers.”
The appeal was published; but it continued painfully true, that the harvest was plenteous, while the laborers were few.
Among the interesting events of the year, were the accession of nine persons to the church at Abeih; and a ”fetwa” of the mufti, or Moslem judge, at Beirt, deciding that the Druzes stand in the same relation to the Mohammedan community and law with the Jews, or any Christian sect; _i.e_. as ”_infidels_;” and, consequently, that a Druze was not subject to prosecution in the Turkish courts, in case of his embracing Christianity. Mr. and Mrs. Benton joined the mission in the latter part of the year.
In the spring of 1847, the Protestants of Hasbeiya sent one of their number to Constantinople, to lay their grievances before the Sultan.
The agent was informed, that the Pasha of Damascus had been instructed to protect the Protestants. The British Amba.s.sador afterwards made inquiries, and received a copy of the doc.u.ment, which proved satisfactory. The Pasha sent a strong order to the Emir at Hasbeiya in 1848, for their protection; and he, though extremely reluctant to obey, sent word to the Protestants, that they might meet and wors.h.i.+p together as Protestants, and he publicly forbade all parties to interfere with them.
When the Greek Patriarch saw that the Turkish government had recognized the principle of toleration, and acknowledged the Protestants as a Christian sect, he resolved to try the effect of a bull of excommunication. The form of these missives is similar in the Latin and the Oriental Churches, and the reader will recall some of the specimens already given.1 The consequence at Hasbeiya, for a time, was that no Protestant could buy, sell, or transact any business, except with his fellow Protestants, and many of the poorer ones were at once thrown out of productive employment, and cut off from the means of living. They were compelled to pay their debts, but could collect nothing due to them, and no redress could they get from the Governor. Many suffered for the necessaries of life. But the faith of the brethren, with a single exception, did not fail.
The Druzes and other sects remonstrated against the whole proceeding, and the rigor of the excommunication began at length to fail, and in December it had lost its force.
1 See in the case of Dr. King, chapter xvii.; and Mr. Bird, chapter iii.
The most important event in the year 1848, was the formation of a purely native church at Beirt. Hitherto the native converts had joined the mission church, formed at an early period of the mission, which was composed mostly of the missionaries and their families.
Circ.u.mstances had made it seem inexpedient, hitherto, to form a church exclusively of native converts. Whether the brethren were right in this, it is not needful now to inquire. The new church originated in the best manner. At the annual meeting of the mission, a pet.i.tion was presented from the native Protestants at Beirt to the American missionaries, asking that they might be organized into a church, according to certain principles and rules embodied in their pet.i.tion. The whole originated with the native brethren. The principles proposed for the const.i.tution and discipline of the church were afterwards modified somewhat, at the suggestion of the mission, in order to a closer conformity with the organization adopted by the Protestant Armenians in another part of the empire.
For some special reasons, they were advised to delay the election of a native pastor.
The great work of translating the Scriptures into Arabic, was now committed to Mr. Smith; and he was a.s.sisted by Butrus el-Bistany and Nasif el-Yasijee.
Messrs. Ford and Benton removed to Aleppo, with a view to a permanent station. They were accompanied by Mr. Smith, Butrus, and Wortabet, the latter of whom remained there until his services were required at Hasbeiya. Mr. Smith visited on his return, the Nusairiyeh in Antioch, Suwaidiyeh, and around Ladikiyeh, and then both them and the Ismailiyeh in their mountain fastnesses back of Ladikiyeh. He found them a rude people in a rough country.
The Rev. Horace Foot and wife arrived in Beirt in August, 1848, and were a.s.sociated with Mr. Wilson at Tripoli. Bedros Vartabed, whose labors were so much blessed at Aintab, died after a very short illness at Aleppo, on the 13th of November, 1848. His last hours were spent in fervent prayer, and his last words were expressive of his grat.i.tude to G.o.d. His life had been characterized by visible progress in the way of holiness, by habitual prayerfulness, and by zeal in the work of urging upon men the claims of the gospel.
A very hopeful fact in the missions to Oriental Churches, has been the number of able men affected by the truth. Eminently such was a learned Greek Catholic of Damascus, named Michael Meshakah, who became convinced of the errors of his Church, and openly declared himself a Protestant in 1848. He had embraced infidel views to quiet his conscience, but the reading of ”Keith on the Prophecies” in Arabic, and other books from the mission presses, especially the Scriptures, led him to relinquish these, and personal intercourse with missionaries, especially with Dr. Smith, induced him to take a decided stand for Christ. He used no reserve in professing his attachment to the gospel. This brought on a controversy between him and his Patriarch, and as he was esteemed the most intelligent native layman in the country, and the Patriarch the most learned ecclesiastic, attention from all quarters was directed to their debate. Having decided to publish the reasons of his secession from the Catholic Church, and to prove the corruptness of the doctrines and practices in that Church, he commenced a free and full correspondence with Dr. Smith in Arabic. The result was a treatise, which was published by the mission. After making the reader acquainted with his own history, he disproved the supremacy of the Pope, the existence of any priesthood but that of Christ, or of any atonement but his. He then showed that there was no authority for more than two grades of officers in the church, or for the doctrine of transubstantiation. There were, also, chapters on justification by faith and the new birth. Dr. Smith declares the treatise to have been ”well and thoroughly argued, sometimes most impressively solemn, at others keenly sarcastic, and spirited and fearless throughout.”1
1 The _Bibliotheca Sacra_, for October, 1858, contains an account of Dr. Meshakah by Dr. Thomas Laurie, and a translation of a treatise by him on skepticism.
Michael Aramon took the place of Butrus in the seminary, and gave the highest satisfaction both as to his literary and his religious qualifications for the post. A Hasbeiyan brother, well informed, upright, ”a burning and s.h.i.+ning light,” taught a school among the Druzes in the higher part of the mountains. Another, named Asaad el-Maalk, exercised a silent influence for good, in a school and upon the people of another mountain village where he taught. Through him, a priest in the Greek church of that village, named Elias, became gradually enlightened. When Asaad began declaring the truths of the gospel, the villagers appealed to priest Elias, and he several times endeavored publicly to defend the doctrines and ceremonies of his Church. Perceiving at length how much the Bible was against him, and that he could not answer his opponent, he became angry, and forbade all communication with Asaad. But the mild and earnest manner of the native brother at length won his heart, and he came to the conclusion, that nothing in his Church had any authority, which was not derived from the Bible. This change in his views he soon declared to his people, and absented himself from the church. Once and again they forced him to go and say ma.s.s. Sometimes he yielded, and sometimes refused; till, near the end of January, 1849, having performed ma.s.s, he went out with the people, locked the door of the church, threw the key down before the door, and declared, in the presence of them all, that he was a Protestant, and could no more act against his conscience by officiating as a priest.
Various methods were tried to bring him back, but in vain.
In May, 1849, Mrs. Thomson and Mrs. De Forest accompanied their husbands to Hasbeiya, and had delightful intercourse with the native Protestant women, who had from the first gone hand in hand with the men.
The brethren at Tripoli endeavored to secure a summer residence in the Maronite village of Ehden, where Mr. Bird had been so rudely a.s.sailed twenty years before, but were driven thence by similar acts of violence. The English Consul at Beirt, without the knowledge of the missionaries, laid the facts before the British Government, and Lord Palmerston promptly administered a severe rebuke to the Patriarch and Emir. The case was eventually settled by the offenders paying seventy dollars, and by the governor of the mountains furnis.h.i.+ng the missionaries with an official guaranty in writing, for their protection wherever they should be able to hire houses.
The American Amba.s.sador also procured a strong vizieral letter to the Pasha in the Tripoli district.
A fourth cla.s.s was admitted to the seminary at Abeih in October, 1849. One member of the cla.s.s was from the most influential family in Hasbeiya, another was a Greek Catholic from Ain Zehalty, another a Maronite from Kefr Shema, another from the Greek sect at El Hadet, and the fifth was a young Druze emir of the Raslan family. Three pupils had been expelled for bad conduct in the previous year, and the discipline had a good effect on the school. Arabic was the medium of instruction; English was taught only as a branch of knowledge, and near the end of the course.
The printing in 1849 exceeded a million of pages. There were two fonts of beautiful type, of different sizes, modeled on the best Arabic calligraphy, and cut by Mr. Hallock at New York. The type were cast in Syria under the supervision of Mr. Hurter.
Of the twenty-seven members in the native church at Beirut, up to the close of 1849, ten were from the Greek Church, four were Greek Catholics, four Maronites, five Armenians, three Druzes, and one a Jacobite Syrian; showing how men of different sects may be made one in Christ Jesus. These church members were widely dispersed, and most of them exerted a salutary influence in the places where they resided.